Jayaratne Balasuriya’s moment

Newspapers build trust. Well, some don’t, but that’s what readership or rather retaining readership is all about. True, reliability is something tossed out to market appeal and thereby popularity, but some newspapers retain loyalty with honesty and integrity. As such they have their moments, and readers partake of them once in a while too. This is one such moment.

Rivira’s been around for five years. It has built trust and that in a way projects appeal to those who’ve become fixated on it. That is why, several months back, it got together with Stafford Motor Company for a unique yet timely competition (“Rivira read, win and ride”). The gift as such was a brand new motorcycle, and its first recipient someone who would read Rivira without failure from week to week and certainly between the lines.

Jayaratne Balasuriya can thank his stars. He became that someone. This month.
‘Read, win and ride’ was featured in both Rivira and its sister paper, The Nation, over a period of two months. The game was to read the paper(s), fill the coupon, and send it.
On Wednesday, August 12, 2015, officials from both Rivira Media Corporation and Stafford Motor Company got together at the Rivira Promotion Office, Maradana. They were there to pick out the winner.

Jayaratne Balaysuriya lives in Rathmalgahaela, Dambulla. He has two children. He worked as a clerk at a company. He waved good-bye to that job. He then embraced agriculture. “I started my own business,” he says. “A motorcycle would have helped there,” he adds, smiling.

Jayaratne is an avid reader of Rivira and The Nation. “We buy both every week, without failure. We have done so for the past five years, and we will do so in the years to come. As such, we follow various competitions and enter them too. My daughter won a cash prize once. We were happy for that. We are happier now, what with a motorbike to our name and the newspaper we love and dote on to thank for it.”

Together with his son, daughter and everyone else in his family, he had mailed more than 80 coupons. Victory, then, wasn’t wholly unexpected. “Not that I believed I won at first of course,” he comments, “But at the same time, that was something to relish and savor, something that enlivened spirit and emboldened the trust I had with the paper.”

And so, on August 27, in the presence of officials from Rivira, The Nation, and Stafford, the bike or rather the key thereto was presented to Jayaratne at the latter company’s office in Maradana.

‘Read, win and ride’ doesn’t end here. There’s no reason that it should. Jayaratne Balasuriya isn’t one among a few. There are other names. Other winners. And readers. Rivira and The Nation have had their moment, thus. So has Jayaratne. Others will get it and there’s no doubt they’ll get it soon. So if what counts in a newspaper is trust, what lends credence to it is loyalty. That loyalty triumphs. Always. Not surprisingly, therefore, Jayaratne Balasuriya’s triumph will be ours too. Soon.In the meantime, we can only wait. And read.